Supervisor of Mechanics and Installers Salary in Illinois: Pay by Experience, City & Take-Home

A first-line supervisor of mechanics, installers, and repairers in Illinois earns a median of $83,180 a year, or about $39.99 an hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2025). Most people in the role land between $66,610 and $105,300, with the bottom tenth near $52,740 and the top tenth above $129,210. That state median runs roughly $3,320 ahead of the national figure for the same job.

How Illinois pay compares to the national rate

The job code here is SOC 49-1011, the people who schedule the work, sign off on repairs, and manage the techs who keep equipment, vehicles, and building systems running. Across the country, the BLS puts the median for this role at $79,860 a year. In Illinois the median sits at $83,180, so a typical supervisor in the state earns about $3,320 more than the national midpoint, a premium of roughly 4.2 percent.

The state mean, which gets pulled upward by the highest earners, is $88,900. When the mean runs well above the median like this, it tells you the top of the pay band stretches a long way: Illinois supervisors at the 90th percentile clear $129,210, while the floor at the 10th percentile is $52,740. That spread of more than $76,000 between the bottom and top tenth is the real story of this job. Where you land depends on your industry, your metro, and how many years and how many people you supervise.

Illinois employs about 17,710 people in this role, one of the larger state totals in the Midwest. That volume matters when you are negotiating, because a deep employer pool means more competing bids for an experienced supervisor and less reason to accept the first offer.

It also helps to read the premium in context. The $3,320 edge Illinois holds over the national median is not huge on its own, but it stacks with the state’s high employment count. A state can pay above the national rate and still have few jobs; Illinois pays above the rate and has nearly 17,710 seats, which is the combination that gives a supervisor room to move between employers without leaving the state. Compare the Illinois median of $83,180 to the national 25th percentile equivalents and you can see the floor here is firm: even the state’s own 25th percentile of $66,610 sits well above what entry-level supervisors accept in lower-cost states. The takeaway is that Illinois is a strong market for this role on both pay and depth, and the main variable left in your control is which metro and which industry you target.

Supervisor of mechanics pay by experience in Illinois

BLS reports pay as percentiles rather than years on the job, but the percentile ladder maps cleanly onto a career. New supervisors who just stepped off the tools sit near the 10th to 25th percentile. People with a settled crew and a few years of budget responsibility cluster around the median. The 75th and 90th percentiles are where senior supervisors, plant maintenance leads, and fleet managers running large operations end up.

The jump from entry to median is the steepest part of the climb, about $30,440, and it usually comes from one thing: proving you can run a crew and own a budget without supervision. Moving from the median to the 75th percentile adds another $22,120, and that step tends to require either a high-stakes industry or formal credentials in maintenance management. The hourly figures are straight conversions at 2,080 hours a year; many supervisors are salaried and exempt, so overtime above 40 hours does not always add to the check.

Look at the gaps between rungs and a pattern shows up. From the 25th percentile of $66,610 to the median of $83,180 is a step of $16,570. From the median to the 75th of $105,300 is $22,120. From the 75th to the 90th of $129,210 is $23,910. The steps get larger as you climb, which means the upper half of this career rewards specialization more than the lower half rewards simply showing up. The people clearing $105,300 are rarely doing a bigger version of the entry job; they are running maintenance as a measured function, with uptime targets, parts budgets, and a crew they staffed and trained themselves.

One practical note on reading these percentiles: they describe the whole Illinois market across every industry at once. A supervisor in a low-margin repair shop and a plant maintenance lead at a manufacturer both count in the same dataset. So if your pay sits at the 25th percentile, that does not mean you are underpaid for your situation; it may mean your industry pays at that level statewide. The way to test it is to compare against your metro figure and your specific sector, then decide whether the gap is something a credential or an industry move can close.

Supervisor of mechanics salary by Illinois metro

Location inside Illinois moves the number by several thousand dollars. The Chicago metro pays the most and holds most of the jobs, while downstate metros run lower on pay but also lower on housing cost, which changes the real comparison. Here are the five Illinois metros with reported data.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin is the clear pay leader at $85,420 and dominates the headcount with 11,630 of the state’s roughly 17,710 jobs, so almost two of every three supervisors in this role work in the Chicago metro. Rockford and Peoria sit close behind at $83,480 and $82,470, both near the statewide median, which is a good outcome given they carry lower living costs than Chicago. Springfield is the lowest of the five at $77,310, a gap of $8,110 below Chicago. If your skills transfer between industries, the metro choice is one of the few levers you can pull without changing employers or earning a new credential.

The numbers reward a closer read. Rockford at $83,480 actually edges past the statewide median, and its 570 jobs come largely from an aerospace and heavy-machinery base that needs experienced maintenance supervision. Peoria, with 590 jobs at $82,470, reflects a long history of heavy-equipment manufacturing in the region. Both downstate metros pay within $3,000 of Chicago while sitting in housing markets that cost a fraction of the city’s, which is the kind of trade that can leave a downstate supervisor with more disposable income than a Chicago counterpart earning the headline-higher number.

Champaign-Urbana at $79,810 and Springfield at $77,310 round out the bottom, and both carry modest job counts of about 310. These are smaller markets, so postings appear less often, but the cost of living is lower again and the competition for a given opening is thinner. The strategic point across all five metros is that the spread from top to bottom is only $8,110, narrower than the swing you would see from changing industries. For most supervisors, the bigger pay lever is the sector you work in, with the metro acting as a secondary adjustment you weigh against housing cost.

Take-home pay after taxes in Illinois

Gross salary is the headline; net is what hits your account. Illinois uses a flat state income tax of 4.95 percent on most wage income, so the state bite is predictable at every income level, unlike states with graduated brackets. The table below runs the four career-stage salaries through federal income tax, FICA (Social Security and Medicare), and Illinois state tax, using single-filer assumptions for the 2026 tax year.

At the median, a supervisor keeps $62,786 of the $83,180 gross, an effective combined rate of 24.5 percent across federal, FICA, and state. That works out to about $5,232 a month or $2,415 every two weeks. The effective rate climbs with income because of federal brackets: entry earners pay about 20.7 percent all-in, while senior earners at the 90th percentile pay around 28.3 percent. Illinois state tax stays flat at 4.95 percent of taxable wages the whole way up, which is why the state column grows proportionally rather than accelerating.

The gap between gross and net widens fast as you move up the ladder. An entry supervisor on $52,740 loses about $10,936 to all taxes combined and keeps $41,804. A senior supervisor on $129,210 loses about $36,538 and keeps $92,672. So while the senior earns roughly 2.45 times the entry gross, the net is about 2.22 times as large, because federal brackets take a bigger share at the top. FICA tells its own story: it runs a flat 7.65 percent on wages until you approach the Social Security wage cap, which is why the FICA column climbs steadily from $4,035 at entry to $9,885 at the senior level. Knowing where each dollar goes is what lets you judge an offer accurately, because a raise that looks large in gross terms is taxed at your top marginal rate, not your average one.

What the same job pays after tax in a no-income-tax state. This is where Illinois costs you real money. Texas levies no state income tax at all. Run the Illinois median salary of $83,180 through both states and the take-home in Texas is $66,903, against $62,786 in Illinois. That is a gap of exactly $4,117 a year, the entire Illinois state tax bill, that a Texas supervisor on identical pay simply keeps. Over a decade at the same salary, that difference adds up to more than $41,000 in net pay, before any raises. It does not automatically mean Texas wins, because housing and local taxes differ, but it is the precise number to weigh if you are comparing a relocation offer.

The figure that actually decides your life is net pay minus local housing. A Chicago supervisor netting $5,232 a month faces metro housing costs that a Springfield or Peoria supervisor does not, and a downstate paycheck that looks smaller on paper can leave more money at the end of the month. Before you accept or counter an offer, run your exact number through the Illinois paycheck calculator, then subtract your real rent or mortgage to see what is left. If you want your full federal and state filing handled with the brackets applied for you, TurboTax walks through Illinois returns step by step.

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How to earn more as a mechanics supervisor in Illinois

The pay band for this role is wide, so movement is realistic. The difference between the median and the 75th percentile is $22,120, and the route there is usually some combination of the steps below.

• Move into a higher-paying industry. Supervisors in heavy manufacturing, rail, utilities, and aerospace maintenance tend to sit in the upper percentiles. If you are supervising auto or light commercial repair near the median, a lateral move into industrial or fleet maintenance can be worth thousands.
• Target the Chicago metro. At $85,420, the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin median runs $8,110 above Springfield. If your household can relocate, the metro shift alone closes part of the gap to the next percentile.
• Earn a maintenance-management or reliability credential. Certifications such as the Certified Maintenance & Reliability Professional (CMRP) or a Six Sigma belt signal you can cut downtime and run a budget, which is what pushes a supervisor toward the experienced band. Short, stackable courses through Coursera in supply chain, lean operations, and project management map directly to this role.
• Take on headcount and budget. Pay in supervisory roles tracks the size of what you control. Supervising 12 techs across two shifts pays differently than running a crew of four. Volunteer for the larger span when it opens.
• Add an EPA, OSHA, or specialized equipment ticket. Compliance and safety leadership are frequently the tiebreaker for the senior supervisor jobs that clear $105,300, because they let one person own a function an employer would otherwise have to staff separately.
• Negotiate against the local data. With 17,710 of these jobs in Illinois and 11,630 in Chicago alone, employers compete for proven supervisors. Bring the metro median to the table and ask for the 75th-percentile number if your record supports it.

Job outlook for mechanics supervisors in Illinois

Illinois supports about 17,710 jobs in this occupation, with the bulk concentrated in the Chicago metro and pockets of steady demand in Rockford, Peoria, Springfield, and Champaign-Urbana. This is a supervisory layer that sits on top of a large skilled-trades workforce, and the demand for it follows the equipment that has to stay running: manufacturing lines, vehicle fleets, building systems, and utility infrastructure. Those do not disappear in a downturn, which gives the role more stability than many office jobs.

The structural tailwind is the retirement wave moving through the skilled trades. As veteran mechanics and lead techs retire, employers need supervisors who can train and hold a younger crew, and that experience premium is exactly what shows up in the spread between the median and the 90th percentile. To see live Illinois postings, pay ranges, and which employers are hiring supervisors right now, ZipRecruiter lets you filter by metro and industry.

Related and higher-paying roles in Illinois

If you are weighing this role against adjacent supervisory and skilled jobs in Illinois, here is how the medians stack up against the $83,180 a first-line mechanics supervisor earns in the state, using BLS Illinois figures for each.

A production and operating supervisor in Illinois earns a median of $75,200, which is $7,980 less than a first-line mechanics supervisor here. An inspector, tester, and sorter earns $47,920, a full $35,260 less than this role. In other words, the supervisor of mechanics seat already pays at the higher end of this cluster, so the strongest path to more money is climbing the percentiles within the role rather than moving sideways into either of these jobs.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) 2025, SOC 49-1011; federal, FICA, and Illinois state tax estimates for the 2026 tax year (single filer). Last updated 2026. See our methodology.